Don Daniel’s Bougainvillea

I’d always come home
from running and come 
across Don Daniel, sometimes
alone, sometime with his wife,

their possession of dirt,
a small, cramped country 
of ripe fruit, aloe vera, lavender.
The bougainvillea vines
would climb over my eyes 

as I walked down the block, 
the trail of spider plants 
dripping over themselves
so that I couldn’t see them
as they worked.

Don Daniel would trim
death in bunches as he spoke,
about his seven sons and three
daughters, the right way
to grow fruit trees, the damn
neighbor’s dog.

He remembered my mother, 
from when her eyes were brown 
tourmaline. His sons once
whistled at her from the window
No eran caballeros, he said.

Once day he’s out
there with a shiny gray suit,
loose everywhere, pulling up
weeds and sweating.

He tells me his whole life 
cramped into stories I forget.
I didn’t know the urgency
of the day, I had come
from running miles and miles,
I wanted to go back to bed.  
No tengo miedo de la muerte.
When he smiles he has two
gold teeth.

Then a few days or months 
later, his wife and daughters 
clear all the plants from the yard 
and my mother mentions him
dying while she washes dishes.

Time ripples on. I no longer
live there and I don’t run.
But now I see all the green
things. I want them 
them to be all I know.